The summer 2013 class of Hackbright Academy visited the Menlo Park headquarters of Facebook on Friday! Facebook is a proud partner of Hackbright, having generously sponsoring the Facebook “Moms in Tech” Scholarships for both summer and fall classes of Hackbright Academy.
After a warm welcome from Facebook diversity program manager Lisa Lee, Facebook software engineer Nishita Agarwal spoke to the students at Hackbright.
Nishita started her talk asking the students if they noticed anything about the Facebook office space. In fact, the Facebook campus reflects the company’s mottos – “Move fast and break things.” “1% done.”
She gave two pieces of advice to the students:
#1 – “Code wins arguments.” Not gender, race, or academic background, but the code you produce.
#2 – “Fake it until you make it.” She talked about imposter syndrome and overcoming it by daring to be great.
Hackbright students checked into Facebook the place (“how meta!”) and had lunch, enjoying Jamaican food and fresh juices from the Facebook cafeteria. The students were joined at lunch by Facebook software engineer Emily Gasca (a Hackbright grad from spring 2013), Instagram software engineer Brina Lee and Caroline Schafer for lunch and conversation before the campus tour, which included writing on the Facebook wall (literally). The campus tour culminated in a trip to the Facebook wood shop and then the sweet shop for some ice cream!
Thanks to our friends at Facebook for taking the time to talk to the Hackbright students, treat us to lunch and give us a fabulous guided tour of the Facebook-MPK campus! We Facebook-like it!
Photo credit: Lisa Lee